Then too soon it is Monday afternoon and I am at City Lit in Covent Garden squirming under the eagle eye of Steve Bradfield who can spot a switch of Point of View before we even take our work out of our bags.   If, as one writer dared, you feebly put up your hand to ask a question or attempt to add to the discussion he says “No you cannot, just listen”.  We do not eat mandarins.

“He’s really good this term,” said a fellow writer as I was making a hasty exit after the first session.

“Really?”  I said sidling past, my eye on the door.

“Oh yes, he was shouting a lot last term.”

I’m already petrified and am unusually quiet for me, head down, concentrating.  Each of us in turn read out the pieces that we work on at home.  For some reason, and I thank whoever it is in heaven who is looking out for me, he passes me by.  Other writers have read at least twice.  Each week I hurry home for another week of frantic editing.

This is a little piece I wrote for last week’s class – How My Parents Met - which I am happy to share with you but for god’s sake don’t  let Steve Bradfield see it.

My mother wore glasses as a teenager but not when she went out dancing.  She stayed close to the wall and her girlfriends informed her, in whispers, whenever they noticed boys looking her way.  She would smile hesitantly across a blurred dance floor that separated the boys from the girls.  My father walked the length of the room in his new suit and Winklepickers to ask her to dance.  Her eyes may have been weak but she knew how to move to the ‘50s rock rhythm and so did my father.

When the band stopped playing, he enquired whether she would like a drink.  She knew it was sophisticated to ask for a gin and tonic but she asked instead for a bitter lemon.

“Bitter lemon?” he replied incredulously.

He pronounced the word “bitter” without sharp sounding “t”s  but she liked a man who could dance, even if he was a cockney.  He took her hand as he led her away from the dance floor and she wondered if  this was a man who wouldn’t mind about her glasses.

Years and two children later, they still rocked together at parties or in the kitchen when one of “their” songs came on the radio.  My father would lead my mother by the hand, all the time watching her face, confidently turning her and reeling her in and out to the beat.

Mr. Jules’ Man Toe.

You’ve all heard of Man Flu.  Mr. J. has gone one step forward (pun intended). It all started with the usual holiday packing stress that Mr. J. suffers from.  Mr. J. needs very few things in his life.  A small carry on case with a few shirts, socks, pants, razor.  (He squats my toiletry bag).  The three women in his life need many things in their lives.  Many, many, things. Electrical hair tools, hair products, brushes, chargers, plug converters and those are just the smaller cases.  His blood pressure started rising when he saw that Sophie-G. was attempting to take her boarding school trunk to Switzerland for the holidays – first argument.  Swearing under his breath about Albanian refugees he then dropped a piece of luggage on his pinkie as he tried to manoeuvre it into the cab.

He refused to talk to any of us on the way to the airport.  He refused sympathy and medication which we all produced from our voluminous bags.  Sophie even proferred her ankle protection.   Nada.  He was incommunicado.  I had visions of having to organise a wheelchair at the airport but he soldiered on, steadily limping ahead and ignoring us.

He refuses to talk to us, the ones who made him suffer, about his Man Toe but discusses it at length with any visiting family members and at the last count, the whole of Verbier.  The many hues of purple, blue and pink are exclaimed at and grown men debate on the efficacy of applying a splint.

So why is Mr. J’s Man Toe a relevant New Year’s posting?  There is a lesson here.  Two things: we should all be more grateful – he has another 9 toes in working order; be careful where we lay blame – look to ourselves first…er hum.  But my New Year’s message is please, don’t sweat the small stuff, think about the big picture always. Which brings me back to my original idea of encouraging a mind set of blue sky thinking in 2012 but then you wouldn’t have heard about Mr. J’s Man Toe.

Turkey.

My cousin Christine’s daughter is cooking the turkey for their whole family this year and already Christine is in a panic worried that Katie will not get the food on the table all at the same time.  Although it is not hard to place a large fowl in the oven,  getting five veggies, pigs in blankets, stuffing, cranberry sauce, bread sauce, and roast potatoes perfectly cooked, piping hot and ready at the same time is bloody hard work.

That’s my family, Christmas is all about food.

How  many times has Madre asked me if I have ordered the turkey?  Seven.

I have been lying.   Since end October.  I only actually ordered it last week.  I called up Norbert our local butcher in Genolier and was given a salient lesson on Swiss charm.  My phone here in London has been playing up.  This obviously infuriated him and he yelled at me for making him pick up the phone three times.  I presumed he thought I was a child – this happens sometimes with my voice – and calmly told him who I was, implying that we have been customers for years and hoping that soon the penny would drop.  But no, Norbert was having a funny.  I then placed my massive Christmas order, as I do every year and he gruffly repeated everything back to me.

Here in London,where the economy is not doing as well as Switzerland, customers are made to feel, if not special, then at least that their custom is appreciated.

Ah bon. He’s probably still annoyed with me after that year he sent Mr. J. home with two small turkeys instead of one large one and I called him threatening to send Madre over to sort him out, and gave him a sob-story about how my whole Christmas would be ruined if I opened the oven and presented two chicken-sized turkeys at the table.  I’m not kidding.  I don’t know whose turkey I got in the end and who got the two small birds, well actually I do, and strangely enough we are no longer on speaking terms.  That’s how far I will go because that is how much pressure I AM UNDER!!!  (English people understand this).

Last year it was Madre’s turn to go to my sister’s for Christmas and just as well as I got the timing of the turkey wrong.  I’m blaming it on the oven but in hindsight it possibly had something to do with the hour required to bring it to room temperature which I sort of forgot about.  I texted the chef in the family , my brother-in-law, who sent back the following:

“I’ve researched it and it appears that European turkeys take longer in the oven than standard UK turkeys”.

I fell for that one.

“Robin’s are territorial, you know.”  I said to Mr. Jules as I placed seeds on the garden table.  Mr. Jules scoffs imagining Rambo Robin with a bandana and a kalashnikov.

I call my sister as I seemed to recall she once had a robin in her garden in Dorset.  She tells me to put water out for our robin and how her robin used to come to the back doorstep and sing to them.

“That’s NOT FAIR”  said Mr. J. when he heard of this.

Perhaps being a city robin he has developed a blasé, urban approach to life.

The Sunday Times Style magazine is hosting a fabulous fashion bring and buy sale on 26th November in aid of Dress For Success London in the beautiful setting of the House of St. Barnabas, 1 Greek Street, London W1.  It will be a brilliant day of shopping, cocktails, make-up and killer bargains from Matches, Mulberry and many others.  Tickets are £20 – please call 0844 543 9806 to book.

Please attend if you can otherwise please think of donating clothing next time you have a wardrobe clear-out www.dressforsuccess.org/london

XJules